Posted by Maggie McGuire Kuh
Today The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) announced funding for
two projects leveraging the promise of engineered stem cells
to speed new therapies and deeper understanding of Parkinson’s disease.
Advances in technology are allowing scientists to engineer
dopamine neurons, which degenerate and die in Parkinson’s disease, from skin
and blood cells. Researchers are attempting to use these neurons to replace
what is lost in Parkinson’s and restore motor function. In addition, the cells
can serve as research tools for exploration into the disease process and impact
of therapeutic intervention.
“The complexity and mystery of brain diseases make them
incredibly difficult to understand and to treat,” says MJFF CEO Todd Sherer,
PhD. “Stem cell technologies may offer a more sophisticated dopamine
replacement approach and provide the opportunity to study the influence of
disease and of interventions on these vulnerable cells.”
Stem cells form a more specialized type of cell (e.g., muscle or
red blood cell). Embryonic stem cells (also called pluripotent) are found in
fertilized eggs and can become any type of cell. In 2007, with genetic
manipulation, scientists first engineered embryonic stem cells from an adult
cell found in connective tissue. The creation of these induced pluripotent stem
cells (iPSCs) — essentially “man-made” stem cells that can become other cell
types — has transformed medical research. iPSCs are easier to access and may be
the source of a personalized therapy that the body is less likely to reject
(i.e., dopamine neurons made from one’s own blood or skin cell).
Therapy Replacing Machinery, Not Only Product
Dopamine loss causes Parkinson’s motor symptoms including
tremor, rigidity and slowness and may play a role in some non-motor symptoms.
Replacing dopamine neurons may provide a regulated stream of dopamine that
would alleviate motor symptoms.
MJFF and the National Stem Cell Foundation (NSCF) are partnering
to fund Ole Isacson, MD,
of McLean Hospital and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, to further study
implantation of dopamine neurons made from iPSCs in the brains of
pre-clinical models.
“The restoration of the dopamine supply system would be a
significant step forward in our treatment of Parkinson’s disease,” said Dr.
Isacson. “This project brings us closer to realizing such a therapy, though
there is still much work to be done.”
MJFF also is funding a project led by Lorenz Studer,
MD, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, investigating
transplantation of dopamine neurons derived from embryonic stem cells drawn
from existing cell lines.
While our funding is testament to our belief in this therapeutic
route, MJFF also believes that stem cell therapies should be proven effective
before making it to market. The Foundation signed a coalition letter opposing
legislation that would give conditional approval to stem cell therapies that
have proven safety but not yet efficacy. Read the letter
opposing the REGROW Act.
Tools Lay Groundwork for Insight into Disease Process and
Therapeutic Impact
In addition to breeding a direct therapy, iPSCs are used to
develop and test other treatments. Dopamine neurons engineered from iPSCs
provide an unparalleled model to mimic the Parkinson’s disease process in
laboratory experiments. Scientists can use this resource to, for example,
investigate the impact of causal factors such as genetic mutations and environmental
exposures and the pathogenic role of cellular processes including mitochondrial
dysfunction and oxidative stress. Furthermore, researchers can introduce drug
compounds and assess the impact on maintenance or restoration of dopamine
function.
To further these investigations, the MJFF-sponsored Parkinson’s
Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) is making iPSCs available at
no cost to the researcher community. PPMI is following a diverse population of
people with Parkinson’s, with risk factors of the disease and control
volunteers for more than five years across 33 clinical sites. Robust clinical,
imaging and biological data from PPMI (also available to all qualified
researchers) increases the value of the study’s iPSCs.
“PPMI builds the infrastructure off which the greater research
community can drive discovery, validation and replication,” said Mark Frasier,
PhD, MJFF Senior Vice President of Research Programs. “The ‘disease in a dish’
model provided by iPSCs is an asset in the development and testing of new
treatments, and streamlined access to these well characterized tools will speed
progress.”
The Golub Capital iPSC PPMI Sub-study has two phases. The first
— a partnership with the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research
Institute funded by Lawrence E. Golub and Karen L. Finerman, a member of the
MJFF Board of Directors — created iPSC lines and fibroblasts from skin samples
of 20 people with Parkinson’s disease and five control volunteers. This
extensive collection of Parkinson’s and control participant iPSCs with
complementary clinical information is now available to interested researchers
at http://www.ppmi-info.org/cell-lines/.
The second phase — funded by nationally recognized credit asset
management firm Golub Capital, led by Lawrence and David Golub, also a member
of the MJFF Board of Directors — contracts Cellular Dynamics International to
make available iPSCs derived from blood samples from 85 PPMI participants. This
cohort includes volunteers recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s, those with
genetic mutations associated with the disease, people with a clinical risk
factor of hyposmia or REM sleep behavior disorder, and control volunteers. This
diverse population and number of samples will increase the scope and scale of
investigation with these resources, and those iPSCs will be available later
this year.
https://www.michaeljfox.org/foundation/news-detail.php?mjff-supports-stem-cell-projects-to-explore-therapies-and-provide-research-tools
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